ED seizes jewellery worth over Rs 82 cr of Hyderabad group

19 Apr 201905:32am IST

19 Apr 201905:32am IST

PTI, NEW DELHI: About 146 kg of gold jewellery worth over Rs 82 crore has been seized by the ED after it raided the premises of a Hyderabad-based jewellery group and its associates in connection with a post demonetisation money laundering case, the agency said Thursday.

It said the searches were conducted at the showrooms of Musaddilal Jewellers at Hyderabad and Vijaywada, its promoter Kailash Gupta, a company named Balaji Gold and its partner Pavan Agarwal, another company Ashta Laxmi Gold, its proprietor Neel Sunder Tharad and chartered accountant Sanjay Sarda over the last few days.

"For tracing the proceeds of crime, simultaneous searches were conducted in the premises of the accused persons which resulted in the seizure of 145.89 kg of gold jewellery worth Rs 82.11 crore," the Enforcement Directorate said in a statement.

The agency had filed a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against these people based on an FIR of the Telangana Police and a complaint of the Income Tax Department for "blatantly misusing the scheme of demonetisation by illegally depositing huge amounts of unaccounted demonetised cash in their accounts."

The statement said the accused "illegally deposited Rs 110.85 crore in their bank account falsely claiming that within a few hours they had received advances of less than Rs 2 lakh each from more than 5,200 customers on the night of November 8, 2016 for purchase of gold and jewellery from their firms".